After learning about Tim Cook’s recent letter about the iOS 6 Maps app, I’ve seen a few tweets on my timeline asking/wondering if Steve Jobs would’ve publicly apologized in the same way. Let me take you through a few of examples.
Exhibit A, from 2007, just after the launch of the first-gen iPhone. Steve wrote a similar letter and published it on Apple.com after the price of the 8GB model was dropped from $599 to $399 just two months after it went on sale.
We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.
Then we have Exhibit B, from 2010, when the iPhone 4 went on sale. Apple released a statement after the initial pre-order rush caused a lot of customers to miss out due to system malfunctions.
Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.
And then there’s Exhibit C (Via @annkur), from WWDC 2011, where he introduced iCloud.
It just works…. Now, you might ask, why should I believe them, they’re the ones who brought me MobileMe.
It wasn’t our finest hour, let me just say that. But we learnt a lot…
Still wondering?